Superminds: The Surprising Power of People and Computers Thinking Together

Description

There are new kinds of intelligence forming in the twenty-first century. Computers are beginning to teach themselves with spectacular results. But in our excitement over the promise of neural networks and deep learning, we have neglected the most important development of all: collective intelligence. Superminds - groups of people and computers together - can act more intelligently than any person, group, or computer has ever done before. They already make many of our most important decisions, whether through the hierarchy of a multinational company or the democracy of a nation state. And they will do a lot more. Groundbreaking and utterly fascinating, this book will change how you think, now and in the future.

Thomas W. Malone is the Patrick J. McGovern Professor of Management at the MIT Sloan School of Management and the founding director of the MIT Center for Collective Intelligence. He was also the founder and director of the MIT Center for Coordination Science and one of the two founding co-directors of the MIT Initiative on "Inventing the Organizations of the 21st Century." He is the author of The Future of Work, and he has published more than 100 articles, research papers, and book chapters; been an inventor on 11 patents; and co-edited three books.

'Malone does a terrific job of explaining how collective intelligence has evolved.' * City A.M. * 'Superminds is the first book I have seen that deeply explores the power of information technology to enable truly new forms of human organization. I really love the premise and thoughtfulness of the book, and I highly recommend it if you want to understand and make sense of what we are likely to see in the next few years!' -- Jimmy Wales, Wikipedia founder 'Superminds offers a fascinating deep dive into the science of collective human intelligence, and how communities of minds may ultimately be integrated with AI to produce a new, composite super-intelligence that might soon be leveraged to help solve some of humanity's most pressing problems.' -- Martin Ford, author of the bestselling The Rise of the Robots 'From the father of collective intelligence...a refreshingly realistic view of how computers will supercharge collective intelligence and how these superminds can help us tackle the most complex problems that face the world today.' -- Joi Ito, Director, MIT Media Lab, and author of Whiplash 'Thomas Malone was a decade ahead of most of the rest of us in thinking about the future of work. Now - in this fascinating book - he has done it again, looking ahead to a hyper-connected world and introducing us to new vistas of human capability and creativity achievable through collective intelligence. By thinking imaginatively about our future, Malone helps us think differently about the present.' -- Anne Marie-Slaughter, CEO of New America and author of Unfinished Business 'Malone takes us on an intentional journey into thinking about thought, intelligence, reasoning, and consciousness. He sees these notions in extremely broad terms that have changed my views of what it means to "think" - a property that emerges from aggregations and organized structures. I may never see a four-legged table the same way again!' -- Vint Cerf, Vice President and Chief Internet Evangelist, Google 'Forget artificial intelligence. Instead, think collective intelligence, putting "AI in combination with humans who provide whatever skills and general intelligence the machines don't yet have themselves." The possibilities are endless. A book rich in speculation about how collective thinking might solve big problems such as climate change; of interests to fans of Daniel Dennett, Steven Pinker, and other big-picture thinkers.' * Kirkus * 'The story of human civilization has fundamentally been the story of coordination: in families, tribes, markets, nations. The challenge we now face is learning how to collaborate at an unprecedented scale, with both human and nonhuman partners alike - be they institutions, decentralized networks or intelligent machines. Superminds opens a window into what may be the defining question of the coming century.' -- Brian Christian, author of Algorithms to Live By 'An energizing book, filling the reader with a sense of wonder and hope for the future.' * Booklist * 'After helping introduce the phrase "Future of Work" in his 2004 book with that name, Tom Malone is back to remind us that the real impact of technology will come not only from AI but also from harnessing human minds at hyperscale. In this well-researched and highly readable book, he explores provocatively and practically the opportunities and challenges that superminds will help us address in businesses and society. Leaders who care about the power of human minds in a world enabled by digital technologies must read this book.' -- James Manyika, Chairman, McKinsey Global Institute